Nikhil Arora, 25, and Alejandro Velez, 24 were in there last semester at the University of California. They both had business positions lined up when they were given the idea to grow mushrooms out of recycled coffee grounds by one of their professors. They were told that nobody had ever tried to commercially produce mushrooms this way. When they succeeded in producing the mushrooms on a small scale and won a college innovation competition, they decided to take it further. So, they turned down their corporate jobs.

That summer they spent researching and developing what they thought would do to make this a sustainable business. They made there first mushroom sale to Whole Foods Market that October. However, they quickly moved to entirely making kits that mainly large companies use to grow there own mushrooms using recycled coffee grounds. They do sell them to individuals however. They now continue to successfully sell their kits. They started in 2009.

What I really like about these guy’s story is that they show so many entrepreneurial qualities. They were willing to take the risk of giving up nice positions in order to follow their entrepreneurial idea. Not only that, but they made it happen and started selling in less than a year of when they came up with the idea. They took the risk and they took it fast. They also did very well at recognizing what a great opportunity it was when they saw it. I think recognizing opportunities is something big to take out of this. I really like the concept of taking something that is known, just nobody has tried to make it into a business venture.